bg

Sunday, March 28, 2010

the time will come...

Things are changing around here.

The house is coming together and I think I am safe to say we will move in some time in April!

In years past I have been full bore mountian bike racing by this time. Not this year, I am taking it a little slower and trying something different. This last weekend is the first time I have missed the Fontana National in years, watching the videos and talking to Alex made me really hungry from some dirt racing, but hungry is a good thing.

The skimo racing thing is a crazy new challenge and after 2 races in the last few weeks I have only learned how much I have to learn. Fitness and skill combined to move fast in the mountains, oh so similar to mountain bike racing.

Also have some big ski traverses in the works, Saturday's tour was only a warm up...

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

racing again already?

The weekend mountain bike racing provided a nice little break from skiing and gave everyone a chance to size up there winter training. The field was deep and the time gaps were the smallest I have ever seen in St George.

I felt pretty good in the race but just did not have the speed to go the distance and made a tactile error that put Alex and I out of the running for the win. Burke put in a great attack at the perfect time and sealed the deal, I think we will be seeing more and more of that...On top of that I made a serious rookie mistake following Alex up the wash on the last lap and crashed straight into a ledge, a perfect slow motion flip over! Got in a nice 4 hour trail ride the next day.

Anyway, back to skiing this week. Tuesday I got out with the Andy and the rest of the "slacker medical student crew with the entire month of march off to ski." We went up the North ridge of Lake peak which provides some fun scrambling. Skied the East chute to White Pine lake and then flipped it went back up. Skied the West face onto Red Pine Lake and ascended the Red Pine headwall to the Pfief ridge. Started snowing hard and visibility went to pot so we skied a nice little shot down the Maybirdheadwall. Over toward the Oblisk shoulder and out the Maybird apron finished things up. Even got across the stream without incident. Pretty much good snow everywhere including at least 10" new in upper Maybird.

Maybe another 4-6 weeks of solid skiing then it will be perfect time to ramp it up on the bike...